


Blueberry Cupcakes

by MithrilWren



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bakery, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Literal Toothrotting Fluff, does this count as a coffeeshop fic?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 03:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20090773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MithrilWren/pseuds/MithrilWren
Summary: The thing is, she really doesn’t get new customers.(Or, "Jester walked into a bakery and immediately called the girl at the counter beautiful, was I supposed tonotwrite this?")





	Blueberry Cupcakes

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, this is a nice change of pace from all the soul-crushing angst I usually put out. Written in a rush of endorphins post-episode and edited very, _very_ lightly.

The thing is, she really doesn’t get new customers.

_The Softer Stone Forge _is something of a family business, which is not to say that her family owns the bakery – _she _owns the bakery, and proud of it – but rather that the same families frequent it year after year. Folks know her for her skill and pay as often in fresh ingredients as in coin, when there’s enough produce to be bought from peddlers who trade in warmer lands down south. In that way, the pastries she makes are a community effort, and that community rarely changes.

She’s just gotten a new crop of blueberries in from the Squiresword’s son, and flash frozen too, bound to keep fresh for the rest of the winter. She’s very happy about that.

“Hello, beautiful!”

The unfamiliar voice tinkles on the air, light as snowdrops, and she looks up to find a strange girl in the middle of her shop, with her arms outstretched and twirling slowly on the spot as she takes in the rows of shelves like it were a palace of jewels.

The girl’s blue hair falls loosely against her shoulders, and beneath the wind-blown bangs she spots the hint of violet irises set amidst a sea of freckles. Stranger still, the tips of pointed horns peek out above her ears. The girl’s dress is unlike anything she’s ever seen, even among the southern merchants: layers of dark fabric cut into angular pleats and held together at the waist by a thick embroidered scarf. She’s so caught up in staring at all the different facets of peculiarity that it takes a long moment for the girl’s words to register, and by the time she begins to wonder if they were directed at her, the cheerful voice resumes. She prepares herself to deliver a professional, if bemused, spiel about her wares.

The girl not from the city, not that that was ever in question, but it’s soon clear her new customer isn’t even from the region at all.

“Have you never had black moss before?” The girl’s eyes go wide as she hands over the first of the batch, and she can’t help but smile back as the girl’s grin spreads from ear to ear. She learns that her new customer likes sweet things, but not savoury, and isn’t particular beyond that preference, and that she _tips_.

_Nobody_ in this town tips. 

“Thank you for your patronage,” she says, and despite the fact that she’s been up for five hours and on her feet for most of that, the farewell isn’t as perfunctory as she usually gives.

An honest conclusion to an odd encounter, one that’s not likely to be repeated, but definitely something worth gossiping over at the bar when she’s finally closed up for the night.

She turns to bid her goodbye, and finds the girl watching her with a look of absolute rapture.

“This… was worth the entire trip.”

_Badump._

The girl stares after her with eyes entirely too honest, still wiping away the remnant of black crumbs from her lips, and she’s lit from behind by the glow of the hearthlight, and she’s...

Well, she’s gone, with a box of pastries and a promise to return, and without leaving her name.

She debates the merits of running out onto the street and asking, but as she looks down at her reflection in the polished metal, she notices the smear of frosting on her cheek. Cursing, she scrubs it away with a thumb, and by then the strange girl has disappeared somewhere down the length of the street.

The girl promised to come back tomorrow. Even so, she sets aside an assortment of the pastries before the freshest are sold, just in case.

\---

Jester. The girl’s name is Jester.

She learns this the next morning, when the girl bounds up dutifully to the counter just past opening, this time dragging another girl at her hip. She finds she’s oddly disappointed, that the girl isn’t alone. The other is interesting in her own right – humans are not so rare as tieflings, but certainly not common in these parts – but while Jester still coos over every display, pointing out each little detail (and yes, she _is_ proud of the new stamp she crafted to decorate the pheasant pies), the new girl slouches in the corner, unenthused and unwilling to participate in the decision making process. As such, she addresses her words to Jester alone. Politeness breeds the like, and all that.

“Yes, could I please have six more of those moss thingies from yesterday, and oh, as many of the blueberry ones are you can sell me!”

“Well, how many can you carry?” she half-asks, half-teases as she searches below the counter for a box and comes back up to find Jester with her sleeves rolled up to her shoulders, flexing the sizable girth of her biceps.

“Oh, I don’t know, a lot.” Jester leans in and whispers, “I’m really strong, you know.”

_Badump_.

It’s not that she’s unaccustomed to well-built girls. They’re a silver a dozen in a place like this, where half the town works the mines and the other forges what’s extracted. She could find herself a handful of blacksmith’s daughters stumbling into any given alleyway.

Which is why the blush that’s rapidly creeping up her cheeks is so… disconcerting.

“I can see that,” she forces out, and Jester grins, all bubbles and warmth, and takes the offered box.

“Thanks for this!” Her skirts do a little whirl as she turns. Which is only mesmerising because she still can’t place the style of the dress, and nothing at all to do with the way it makes the girl look like a dancer in motion as she steps lightly towards the door.

“Later,” drawls the second girl, tilting her head in farewell. She barely hear her, too busy staring off after the swish of skirts and the glint of torchlight against blue hair.

_Beautiful_.

When she finishes shaking her head of that unbidden echo, the shop is once again empty.

\---

She learns a little more about the expedition Jester belongs to as the days go on, both from Jester herself and the whispers of the folks at the Broken Stool. They’re here looking for materials to reforge a sword, and not having much luck of it.

She’s not sure which is worse – the prospect that they’ll find what they need, or that they don’t. Either way, it doesn’t end with Jester still in town. Either way, it means an end to the little fascination that she’s begrudgingly permitted herself to entertain.

It’s not that she thinks Jester means anything by the flirtations, not really. She’s been unlucky in love often enough to be wary of supposing anything that’s not explicit. But it doesn’t mean she can’t daydream about what would it be like, to be the kind of girl that a beautiful, mysterious stranger falls for. Like something out of a song: to be swept away from this mundane life into a life of adventure, _give me only your word, and I will follow you to the end of the world_. Or even a tale less fantastical: a soft hand slipped into hers, a secret meeting in the shadows of the eave, a kiss by firelight and gone by morning.

She certainly won’t be the one to ask, but if it was offered… well, she wouldn’t say no.

One day, Jester comes in and asks to see how the baking’s done. It’s a process very near and dear to her heart. It’s also all already done for the day. There’s no dough left to bake. Jester only smiles brighter at this.

“Then let’s make some!”

“It’ll take time to rise.”

“I can wait!”

Jester hops up on the counter, thigh landing just inches from where her hand rests on a stack of delivery forms. A few inches closer, and her pinky would brush the edge of Jester’s pleated skirt.

_Badump._

She takes a step back and wipes her hands on her apron, though they’re perfectly clean.

“Right, let’s get started then.”

Jester is a willing, if absentminded student. She eats more than her fair share of the blueberries before they can make it into the filling, which she wants to be annoyed about – they were _expensive_, after all – but every time she tries to muster the frustration she’s supposed to be feeling, Jester makes a pleased little hum in the back of her mouth as she pops another in, and the chastisement fades into a sort of fondness she knows it’s much too soon to feel.

There’s frosting on her face again by the time they’re done, and Jester brushes it away with her knuckles then pops her fingers in her mouth, and _oh_, that is… not helping.

“Still sweet,” Jester crows by way of explanation.

“Do you like sweet things?” she asks stupidly, to prevent herself from doing something even more stupid. Jester looks at her like she’s gone mad.

“Of course, I told you that, silly.”

“If you like sweet things… then close your eyes.”

She doesn’t know where this sudden bravery came from, but once she’s said the words she can’t call them back, and Jester’s eyelids are already fluttering closed. Swallowing, she turns around to the workbench and grabs a palmful of course sugar, then a blueberry from the bowl of water where they’d been defrosting. A quick squeeze leaves the berry encrusted in a coat of shimmering crystals. She hastily brushes the rest of the sugar into the sink and turns back to Jester.

“Open your mouth.”

Jester’s lips quirk, but she opens them dutifully. Before she can think better of it, she reaches out and places the berry on her tongue. The lips close, catching the edge of her thumb before she can pull away, and just that brush of moisture and heat is enough to send a shiver all the way down to her toes.

Jester sighs around the berry as she chews, and without opening her eyes, she murmurs, “Sweet.”

“Yeah,” she replies faintly.

Jester’s eyes open. They’re less than a foot apart. Any closer and their knees would be touching.

Jester’s cheeks aren’t pink like hers, but it’s darker than they were before.

“You’re looking like you’re about to kiss me,” Jester teases, laughing lightly.

“Yes,” she says, and Jester’s smile falters. It’s the first time she’s seen her off balance, and well, in for one, in for a dozen. “Can I?”

Jester opens her mouth, then closes it again, sugar crystals glistening on her chin.

She doesn’t move, not before getting permission.

Jester does.

The lips that meet hers are soft – hesitant, unsure – and she tastes of blueberry and sugar and clean, smokeless air – more confident now, and open, and pressing back – and she never wants to taste anything else again in her life, if it means keeping this moment on her tongue.

They come apart spit-shined and mussed, nervous and bright-eyed, just slightly bruised. Neither of them knows much about kissing, it turns out.

The second attempt is a little cleaner.

By the third, they’ve really got the hang of it.

\---

The cupcakes burn. Jester still eats three.

\---

It can’t last forever. She never expected that it would. There comes a day when Jester steps into the bakery and her eyes are a little less bright than usual.

“So, we’re leaving today,” Jester explains, regret thick in her voice.

“Oh,” she says. “Ok.”

“…I don’t know the right thing to say. This isn’t how the stories usually go.”

No. The stories end in forevers or in tragedy, but never in the inbetween. How do you say goodbye when you mean, _thank you_? When what you had wasn’t an epic tale of eternal romance, but it meant something, all the same?

“Here,” she says, pulling a cupcake off the rack and walking around the end of the counter, walking until they stand toe to toe. “For the road.”

Jester takes it, then throws her arms around her shoulders. There’ll be frosting in her hair when she checks later. “I’ll come back and see you again.”

She doesn’t think that Jester will, in the end, but that’s alright. It seems silly to regret the sweetness, even if it’s brief.

“Goodbye, beautiful,” she says, and rises up to her tiptoes so she can plant a kiss on Jester’s temple. “Think of me sometime.”

Jester’s smile is a little watery, but she nods and waves goodbye, and pauses in the doorframe to shove the whole cupcake into her mouth. She breaks into a laugh, and Jester gives her a thumbs up through the window.

She can’t think of a better image to remember her by.

**Author's Note:**

> Epilogue: Bakery Girl is Jester's +1 to TravelerCon.


End file.
